What do we know, of the world and the universe about us?
Confined to lives of one century at best, we consider this infinitesimal slice of the history of all existence to be all that we know, all that matters. But really, what does the birth of one filthy infant in a bleached-white hospital room mean to the trees, the wind, the Earth, and the cosmos? If there is a God who created this world, His vision must be so broad as to render the plight of these human creatures mere nothings in the face of the universal quandaries that we cannot hope to comprehend.
In truth, if a star could think, if it could feel and emote just as we so readily believe only humans and their ilk can, then it would provide a different view, with its own biases.
It would, with Its lifespan of billions of years, beyond the scope of any species, see that genesis and termination of humanity as merely a blink in Its cosmic, fiery eye; with a day of Its time expended the planet Earth would see the turmoil of its creation through fire, the conception of its basic lifeforms, their extinction and the rise of greater creatures. Weeks later in the view of this sun, that blue chunk of rock floating tenuously in space would be scorched black by the expanding influence of Its heat, swallowing up the red speck that humans called Mercury, with all the care of a horse that trods in a pile of fellow manure.
And then, even at the end of Its life, It would see such an expanse of time as being forever; just as It explodes in a backyard firework of the galaxy or shrinks into a pale dot in Its stellar home, a new, greater Thing would have opened its eyes to a new, broad, galactic morning, the death of It being a mere itch on the skin of this Thing.
The cycle would continue: sometime even the mighty Thing, given the name “Milky Way” billions of years ago by a tribe of adapted biological constructs, would crumble and die, shrivelling and moaning about its own lost grandeur, and how oh so much that it had experienced, and how oh so much it could still do, given a few more of its years. The Thing would fade, no longer existing in the eyes of the greater Cosmos; in time, even the Universe, like the king of all gods, would meet its end, and yet for some greater existence that would be merely a fraction of a fraction of a transitory moment, gone sooner than it could even be remembered.
It is this Universe that we are born into, and it is mighty and careless. In the stream of existence, humans are hardly important enough to be considered granules trailing along with the flow of cosmic water, and in the vast multitude of universes that surely exist there also surely exist more simple creatures of organic make that think themselves lords of all existence.
We are born into a universe of unknowns, and it is these unknowns that we fear the most: as children we fear boogeymen under beds and in closets, and even as adults we remain wary of movements in the shadows, ever morbidly curious and fearful not of what those shadows truly are, but of what they could be.
There is so much that we simply do not know about the world, and so many unknowns and gaps in our knowledge, that the definition of what we consider “real” is tenuous at best, and outright illogical at best.
We base our entire universe around what we can observe and theorize about, refusing to realize that the vast cosmos can never be understood as a whole, and there will always be some bigger, more apathetic fish in the ocean of that cosmos.
Our reaction to terrors we do not wish to know is most commonly to scream; this serves no purpose, and perhaps is the greatest example of the futility with which humanity struggles against the forces of the cosmos so much greater than any mustering of human will.
This is the universe we all live in.
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You, for various reasons all your own, have come to Bridgewater, a little burg in Massachusetts, tantalizingly close to the mighty, heaving Atlantic Ocean.
In mundane terms, it is nowhere: nothing important happens here, with people living out their lives with their own input and output, rarely bothered by the outside world, as those who seek attention and money and power and all those terribly human desires move north to Boston, tearing apart dreams and hopes even as they reach for their own.
But, beyond those trifles and modern poisons, there exists a unique nexus in Bridgewater where the tenebrous truths that none wish to take for reality are given form. The horrors of the endless possibilities of the human mind are given face and form both corporeal and outside worldly jurisdiction to carry out their needs, or their orders. Forces beyond control them, always and forever, keeping them slave to their inscrutable designs.
Whether it be a sopping hole in a swamp infested with creatures whose flesh slides from their bones with every twitch of their muscles, or winged fiends that have their flutters and shrieks disguised by human reasoning as snarls of simple beasts and motions of the wind.
The only place for an easy rest in this town is at the inn, old and just outside the downtown area; with the humid heat of the night you wish for someplace to stay during your trip, and the air conditioning of the lobby is attractive, coming with its lightly musty scent. Its lights are a beacon in the hot darkness, and you enter, paying for your room and board.
The interior design is simple and repetitive, but it has a rustic charm and thorough accommodations that make it fit for a peasant or a king, almost.
To the left of the lobby, at the entrance, there is a kitchen and small eating area, designed with booths and linoleum reminiscent of earlier decades; from the smells, you can tell that food is being made, and the heads of a few customers can be seen above the backs of their seats, but they don't pay any immediate attention to you when you enter.
Straight ahead is the rest of the lobby, with a small television switched to the local news, and two couches angled towards a fireplace, its flame currently extinguished. You get a good idea of how technologically adept this place is by checking the television set: it still uses the rabbit-ears configuration, the projected colour image covered in a very light static snow.
A bulletin board right beside the entry carries a few local advertisements, the sort with slips of paper marked with phone numbers, asking to sell odds and ends and offering menial work for a price.
More importantly, there is a floor plan of the inn; the first floor is made up mostly of rooms and a few services, whereas the second storey is similar in terms of accommodations to the first with thirteen rooms and a view down to the lobby over a wooden balcony and railing; the greatest floor, the third, has half the number of rooms as the other two floors, but has the addition of a study. The map, unfortunately, offers no details to that particular part of the building's construction.
The choice is now yours: you can choose your room or introduce yourself to others around in the lobby. There has been a rush this past evening, with people coming in to return to the safety and comfort of a warm bed.
Do remember, though, that with every opportunity explored, another is lost.
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Ground Floor Plan
Room Layout
Date: July 9th, 1992
Setting: Bridgewater, Massachusetts, USA
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Originally Posted by asterism42
